


leave me room for my imperfections

by codesandhearts



Category: Spider-Man - All Media Types, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: F/M, also: mj and liz as friends?? a Concept, mentions of infinity war, michelle jones is amazing and should be defended, miles was mentioned to exist in mcu and no one took advantage???
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-13
Updated: 2017-08-13
Packaged: 2018-12-14 17:29:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,248
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11787972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/codesandhearts/pseuds/codesandhearts
Summary: Michelle Jones finds love three times when she is fifteen.





	leave me room for my imperfections

**Author's Note:**

> oh boyyyy idk what this is but i want miles in the mcu so bad yall give me a champions movie
> 
> title from 'you will find me' by alex and sierra.

 

1.

It was Liz’s idea at first. Her junior year has been wringing her dry; though, as usual, nothing shows on her perfect skin, in her adept hands, her silky hair, but Michelle sees it. Liz has, after all, been a friend since Michelle joined Decathlon team start of freshman year. They notice their inherent kinship - the only biracial girls on their team, their sly, cutting intelligence. Michelle feels it though she rarely shows it, the deep friendship and need to protect Liz, so when Liz comes to her asking if she wants to volunteer with her at the community center in the summer there’s no hesitation.

“Why, though?” Michelle asks when they’re getting the supplies from the car to the center.

“It’s gonna be my senior year, MJ, I need to make my CV as best as I can.”

“You mean, better than it is? You’re Captain of Decathlon this year, plus on the Homecoming Committee and you’re doing ten thousand other things.”

“Not enough,” Liz just grumbles.  

That girl is honestly starting to be nothing more than a walking to-do list with more than she should manage. But try telling Liz Toomes that she can’t do something.

She can hide behind that sugar-sweet, short skirts, pink lipstick and kind smiles all she wants but Michelle knows. There’s something bloody in Liz, something cutthroat.

Michelle has learned to let it go. So she shrugs and just says, “Thanks for inviting me.”

She’s never been to the community center but the second she enters, it’s already something familiar. The peeling paint, the sound of kids’ laughter, the wobbly tables and chairs and the weary faces of the workers. This is where she grew up. Even Liz knows the barest hints of Michelle’s past and she’s always too nice to poke and prod about it but, here, she feels like telling her everything.

She feels four years old again, and she knows, she knows, she’s grateful she got out in the first place, that where she is now is ten times better than anywhere she’s been before. But, somehow, all that slips away, and she wants to say to Liz, “Remember when you met my parents? Well, they’re not really my parents. My real ones threw me out, didn’t want me, and my childhood was spent in places like this.”

She doesn’t know if she feels better or worse when the workers tell them, bone-tired but cheerful, that most of the kids here aren’t orphans or foster kids. They’re poor, sure, but they come here so they stay in school and stay out of trouble. These kids aren’t her. They might have a safer home than she did at their age.

The workers pair them with a kid for the day, so they can act as a big sister.

“These kids usually aren’t worse for the wear, they just need someone to talk to.”

Liz gets a rosy-cheeked eight-year-old girl who immediately tugs on her hand. Michelle is paired with someone older, maybe eleven or twelve, a black boy hunched over some electronics, biting his lip. It reminds her so strongly of Parker she almost gets whiplash. And when the kid looks to her and, man, it’s like the same smile, the same kindness, same sincerity.

“Hi, I’m Miles.”

Miles is a low-maintenance kid, she learns, but no less special. He just wants someone to talk to while he’s working on whatever it is he has. He and Parker are of the same breed - genius boys who find love in family and work, who have bright eyes and look at the world with both realism and hope. She finds out that both of his parents work full-time and can’t afford a babysitter (“Not that I need one,” he interjects strongly). She asks why he can’t stay with any family members.

“I don’t -I mean, Uncle Aaron…” Miles trails off. “Mom says he’s not a good guy. She doesn’t want me hanging out with him.”

“Probably the best thing, don’t you think?”

Miles shrugs. “Yeah, maybe.”

“You’re lucky you have parents who care about you, Miles.” it comes out more biting than she wanted to but he, inexplicably, understands; turns softer.

“She just doesn’t want me to end up like him, a bad guy,” Miles says. “She wants me to finish high school and go to college. That’s why she and my dad work so hard. But they’re still scared that whatever they do, I might not make it. Someone like me. Someone who looks like me.”

And Michelle gets it. Man, does she get it. But her heart breaks. This kid is eleven years old and he already understands that, one day, he could be walking the street and not make it home.

They start talking about everything afterwards, comic books and superheroes. “Which one’s your favourite?” she asks. “Iron Man? Captain America?”

Miles shakes his head gently. “That Spider-Guy.” Michelle’s seen some grainy videos of that guy, dressed in nothing more than sweatpants and a red hoodie. he’s not exactly someone Michelle would call a superhero. She imagines shiny shields and larger-than-life acts of heroism.

But then Miles says, “He stopped a robbery near my house once,” with the fondest voice on earth and Michelle reconsiders.

 

2.

She’s not stupid. Sure, no one at school would say she was stupid and she’s the smartest girl alive to her parents but, man, Peter and Ned must think she’s deaf and blind at this point. They talk about Spidey business right in front of her in gym class and, for some reason, have no concept of an inside voice.

Even if they didn’t talk about it constantly (Ned more than Peter, because Ned thinks it’s the coolest thing on earth) Michelle would’ve noticed something was up. Parker’s surprising athleticism, his absence in clubs that he was so passionate about during freshman year. There were days where he’d come into school with a limp or bruises underneath his baggy sweaters and Michelle would worry, start internally asking if she should call someone, if something was happening at home.

But, no, he’s just being a dumbass in tights.

And here’s the thing: she still worries. Ridiculously.

Ever since Miles told her about his hero-worship crush on Spiderman (he’d deny it), Michelle has been keeping tabs on Spiderman. Watches his fail videos on Youtube, reads threads on him, looks at the blurry photos of him in his new suit. Michelle roots for him, supports him, if solely for the fact that he’s a working class superhero, that he helps families like Miles’ and makes the streets safer for him. she wants him safe, so he can go on protecting their city in ways big heroes can’t.

Parker is behind the mask and she knows him. Soft eyes, strong hands, back breaking from the weight of his family. He’s awkward and dorky, naive and inexperienced, and so, _ _so__ full of hope.

So she worries.

For Miles’ sake.

Duh.

 

Michelle was already planning on keeping his secret identity to the grave, mostly because there’s little to no chance of her ever interacting with Spiderman. It’s a big city, after all, and it’s enough that she sees Peter everyday.

But, of course, it’s New York. Everyone meets each other eventually.

She’s on the way to the community center, without Liz. Michelle would deny it but she misses Liz fiercely. They still talk all the time but the school hallways feel a bit emptier without her.

She’s walked this way so many times there’s virtually no need to worry but, when she steps into the alley that leads to the back entrance of the center, she finds two guys with hoods up and guns out, pointed to another man on his knees. The man is middle-aged, but grayer than he needs to be. His hands are shaking when he reaches into his back pocket to get his wallet.

Oh, man.

One of the guys cocks the gun. Shit, shit, shit. Michelle dumps her stuff on the ground and grabs the closest thing around her -a metal garbage can lid. She sprints, comes in between the gun and the victim, crouching down on the ground. She can feel the bullet bounce slightly off it, the shaking of the man next to her. Jesus, this is the closest she’s been to death.

She pushes back on the lid, hits the guy who pulled the trigger and swings her feet on the ground like she’s seen in movies, throwing the balance of the other guy. Michelle looks up from the lid and sees another figure entering fight and, for a moment, she freezes from fear but she sees who it is because of course he’s here.

While Parker’s fighting, Michelle looks at the victim, eyes wide and mouth open.

“Are you hurt?” she asks.

“No, no.”

“Good. Run.” She shoves his wallet to him, and pulls him up so he can run.

Michelle quickly turns back to Parker He has one guy in a chokehold, while the other guy has been pushed back but is getting up. He moves quick, smooth. He soon has the guy tied behind his back, shoots with his webbing so they stay in a hold and pushes him against the brick wall.

The other guy is gaining consciousness and limping towards Parker.

“Peter!” she yells out before she can think twice about it. Parker’s suit eyes immediately widen. The criminal aims for a punch but Parker’s quick enough to dodge, offer a smart quip and do the same thing to him that he did to his friend. In what seems like seconds, both guys are sitting against the brick wall, groaning from pain.

Parker turns to her now.

“You knew?”

Michelle shrugs. “For months.”

“And you didn’t tell anyone?”

“Of course not. Parker, it may not seem like it sometimes but we’re friends.”

The stress visibly flows out of Parker’s body. His stance melts, resembling the one she’s more used to -introverted, a little hunched over.

“Do you usually call your friends loser and dickhead?”

“All the time but idiot is reserved for people I really like.”

Parker laughs, tired. “Thank you. Really. I feel like we should talk about this but…”

“You have cops to notify about these guys. And a city to save. Go ahead, bug boy.”

Parker stands up straight again, becomes Spiderman again, and it reminds her.

“Actually, I have something for you to do.” She gets out a blank t-shirt she was already planning to give the center, a permanent marker and her phone to take a picture. “I have a friend who’s a huge fan.”

Needless to say, Miles flips the fuck out.

 

Both Spiderman and Peter Parker become regular fixtures in her life. She doesn’t know how it happens. It starts with seeing Spiderman swinging along the buildings of Queens as she walks their sidewalks because he wants to make sure she makes it home safe, which turns into Peter accompanying her to subway rides, which, obviously, turns into Peter walking her to her door and accidentally meeting her parents.

All the while, she wonders when Parker became just Peter in her head, when she was allowed to sit at their table now and make fun of whatever he and Ned were geeking out about; when she had an open invitation to the Parker home for dinners and movie nights after spending too much time there on Spidey recon missions and making sure Peter doesn’t flunk out of school just because he’s Spiderman; when she started seeing Peter with a soft glow around him and when he started looking at her the same way.

He comes into their home, their apartment made of open balconies and windows, shaking her dad’s hand and accepting her mom’s offer of oatmeal cookies. He trails his fingers along the countertop above the TV, watching the pictures of Michelle and her older sister from when they were kids (her parents adopted her sister about four years before they adopted her) until now. Michelle’s most recent picture is with Miles, over Sunday dinner.

“Is that your brother?” Peter asks.

“He might as well be.”

They find themselves in her room, her sacred space. She doesn’t know why she lets him in. She doesn’t like anyone else in here. But Peter looks in awe of the drawings she’s put up, gaze at her posters of Maya Angelou and Angela Davis, asks her which books from her immense bookshelf he should read next, and sits on her bed decorated in pale blue sheets as the light from the window hits him just right. And she wants him to stay here forever.

Which, you know, gross.

She lets him stay for an hour or two. Peter has always been an open book but she finds that he’s been giving her little pieces of himself that no one except maybe Ned and May have. The broken and bruised boy Spiderman has made of him; the boy who kicks his feet up and unashamedly uses Ned as a pillow during movie nights; little gestures of affection like giving her tea in the morning and keeping his hand on the small of her back when they walk through crowds.

This place can make people cynical, force them out of things they really want, so Michelle’s been collecting them, these shreds of hope Peter gives her, to carry her through.

She remembers all of them now when she sits down next to him on the bed, goes through them in her head as she makes Peter turn her way.

“Hey, idiot,” she says, leaning in.

He tastes like mint chocolate and the metallic edge of blood; like imagined futures and the fifteen-year-old boy who has somehow found himself in her part of the world that she’d die to protect.

 

3.

She’s walking down the street when the sky explodes.

When she comes to, she hears a teenage boy saying, “Dude, Spiderman’s fighting an alien!”

Michelle looks at the top of the building a few blocks away and sees Peter, red and blue, fighting a huge blue creature, who’s firing a weapon that creates great pulses in the sky. It’s been months but Michelle still struggles with the dichotomy of the great superhero and her boyfriend who should be protected at all costs. He’s not being protected now. There’s no one having his back.

Her ears are still ringing when she takes out her phone and calls Ned.

He answers on the first ring. “What the fuck is happening, Leeds?”

“I don’t know!” He’s stressing out. “He was supposed to just be patrolling and this giant blue alien comes out of nowhere and now Mr Stark is yelling at me to keep him alive until he gets there but I don’t know how.”

Ned sounds like he’s crying and, shit, she doesn’t know what to do either. The boy they love is getting hurt by a goddamn alien and what can they do?

The alien has one of their hands wrapped around Peter’s neck now, dangling him in the air like a puppet. Michelle knows that Ned is crying now, in between yells of Peter’s name, and she’s pretty damn close to doing the same. The alien’s other hand, the one holding the weapon, points it down and shoots.

“Shit!” both Michelle and Ned say.

“Ned, where did they shoot?”

“Hold on!”

The alien drops Peter and for a solid minute, Michelle’s heart feels like it’s dying with every inch Peter falls down but her boy, her beautiful boy, manages to web shoot to a near building and starts swinging down.

Ned tells her where the alien shot, in the outskirts of Queens, where the community centre is. Where Miles is.

She runs. She knows she’s going to hurt when she stops but she can’t afford to stop, not now. She catches up with Peter, sees him swinging above her but both of them stop when they come to the wreckage. Queens is on fire.

Michelle feels Peter drop to his feet next to her.

“Michelle,” he says, because he knows, he knows.

She wants to cry, wants to scream, wants to hug him and disappear into his warmth but there’s no time.

“You put out that fire on the west, I’ll take east.”

She doesn’t allow herself to look at him before he leaves. She sprints, east, to the Morales-Davis house. She passes burning houses and screaming people and feels nothing but guilt. She’s coming back to them, she is, she just needs to make sure Miles and his family are safe first.

The house is burnt but Michelle sees Miles outside, on the steps of his neighbour’s house, helping them out. This kid.

She calls out his name and he runs to her.

“You okay?” she asks. “Your mom and dad okay?”

“Yeah, we’re fine,” he says. “What’s happening, MJ?”

Michelle wants to tell him something, so he’ll stop frowning and having a worried expression that makes him older than he is. But she doesn’t know.

Peter appears next to her. “Hey,” he says and her world opens.

“Everything okay on your end?” she asks.

“As good as it can be.”

Michelle looks down Miles’ row of houses. Nearly everyone is out of their homes and safe as they can be but they’re disorganized and messy. There’s going to be chaos soon, unless these people know where to go.

There’s a loud swoosh in the air and Peter has both Michelle and Miles get behind him, defensive until he sees what it is. An orange-red streak in the air.

“Mr Stark,” he says.

Peter turns to her and Michelle can practically feel his puppy face. There are still people who need saving here, people displaced from their homes and are forced to watch the sky burn above them for a war they don’t understand. And Michelle loves Peter, more than she knows what to do with, but this is not his fight.

“Go,” she says. “I got this.”

She kisses his cheek through the mask. Peter pulls his mask up, revealing just his mouth and kisses her properly. So these people know that Spiderman is a pasty white boy who loves her. So what?

Michelle and Miles watch him as he disappears into the sky with Mr Stark. Miles wants to comment, she can tell but she won’t let him. She tells him to get everyone in a crowd and gather all the good supplies from their houses.

“Where are we going?”

“The school,” she says. “I’ll go left, you go right. Tell your parents to spread the message. Are the phones working?”

“Yeah, signal seems fine.”

“Good, call emergency line, tell them the survivors are going to the school and we’re going to make that the base of operations.”

It’s messy, it’s chaotic and hard but, two hours later, when gods and monsters fight in the city, they are safe.

 

By the end of the war, she has helped give shelter to nearly thousands of people. She's always wanted to help people, thought she would get the chance through yelling at the world and being silent when she couldn't. She's been envious of Peter for being Spiderman, for making great and immediate change in their city but there are fires that need to be put out, people who need to be put first.

When Peter comes back, bloody and full of nightmares and love, both of them are heroes.

**Author's Note:**

> now has a companion fic! [a rarity of my genuine smile](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11818713)


End file.
